Enabling Autonomous Public Transportation With Keolis

Autonomous on-demand public transportation seems to be an obvious path to the future of mobility. The ability to move without the need for a human driver promises improved reliability, safety and efficiency. However, there are many challenges that need to be addressed before this vision can become a reality.

Keolis, a global leader in the shared mobility market, is pioneering the development and implementation of autonomous public transport systems with the help of Autofleet.

By using the right software, and the right optimizations, Keolis is creating the best service possible, making this vision come true.

The Challenge

For autonomous vehicles to become a part of everyday reality, they need to be integrated into the wider mobility environment. They must not only be safe and reliable as a vehicle, but must also become part of the transportation ecosystem and interact seamlessly with passengers.

This ecosystem includes multiple vendors and OEMs, each with different capabilities and interfaces. One of the biggest challenges for Keolis was the creation of a single pane of glass that provides both visibility and control across multiple shuttle OEMs.

Visibility is crucial for autonomous transportation providers in order to coordinate and orchestrate operations efficiently, and to manage the entire fleet effectively. And is required to make reporting to local government and other external stakeholders possible. 

Lastly, Keolis faced the challenge of empowering safety drivers with the tools they need to intervene with the autonomous vehicle, equipped with full knowledge of both the vehicle and the environment it operates in. 

The Solution

By using the right software and the right optimizations to create the best service possible, Keolis is making its vision of autonomous, on-demand, public transportation come true. With Autofleet, Keolis has a single platform which enables and manages the entire AV operation seamlessly, including multiple customizable capabilities.

Fleet and ride management

A single Control Center provides a unified pane of glass to get real-time visibility and control over the entire AV operation, regardless of shuttle brand and capabilities. It shows rides in real time, as well as telematics information, and provides automations for maintenance, charging and any other fleet task, as well as easy anomaly detection. The Control Center also allows troubleshooting issues as they happen.

Empowering safety drivers 

Together with the Control Center, a dedicated Driver App for safety drivers and field agents makes sure they have all the information they need on hand. This allows Keolis to solve any issue immediately. And makes routine vehicle check-ups (like at the beginning and end of each shift) easy and efficient.

The optimization engine

In order to provide the service levels Keolis is committed to, the vast amount of data coming in from different sensors and OEMs needs to be integrated, rationalized and abstracted. Autofleet ingests this data and provides an end-to-end solution that extracts value from it. 

Dispatching can then be optimized and automated - assigning rides to the right vehicle at the right time. As demand responsive services are implemented in more locations, it becomes even more critical to utilize optimizations to ensure excellence from both the operational and business perspective.

Reporting

The vast amounts of data collected from the shuttles also enables the creation of customizable detailed reports based on Keolis’s business and operational needs.

Reporting is an integral part of any advanced mobility service today and includes General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) integration alongside multiple reports for every KPI Keolis needs to share with stakeholders in the project. 

The reporting tool tracks multiple metrics (e.g. completed trips, average speed, number of passengers at each station etc)., and provides visualizations Keolis uses to make sure the level of service it requires is preserved. It also helps Keolis ensure technical excellence is preserved and unearths insights that are then used to improve operations.

Client facing interfaces

Autofleet also provides Keolis with an open source app for its passengers that allows them to book rides. The Passenger App gives Keolis the tools to consistently execute their commitment to their clients, ensuring that passengers were picked up and dropped off optimally and on time. 

Alongside the app, users can always keep track of the shuttles and their location using Je-Voyage. A dedicated web page that provided live location information on the vehicles and where they plan to stop next.

Conclusion

Together, Keolis and Autofleet manage multiple shuttles from multiple OEMs. Overcoming the challenge of integrating and ingesting the data they provide into a coherent and useful tool.

This provides real time visibility used for dispatching, for fleet operations, to automate processes and to detect anomalies. It also gives Keolis the ability to analyze data over

Autofleet helps manage the demand side of this transportation ecosystem as well, providing a Passenger App and a dedicated web page that give passengers visibility and control. 

Keolis and Autofleet are paving the way for AVs thanks to cutting edge technology and a partnership based on open communication and commitment to the success of each new project. We believe in the power of collaboration to create better, more sustainable and safer mobility, and are committed to making it a reality today.

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